


Market Day

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fortune Telling, Gen, Holidays, M/M, but liberally seasoned with sad foreshadowing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 04:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1496524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the years of the Trees, Fingon, Maedhros and Maglor spend a summer day in Alqualondë.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Market Day

“I still feel rather superfluous here” complained Macalaurë as they walked along the quayside. Maitimo carried a twisted cone of paper filled with tiny cinnamon pastries that he had bought them, still scalding hot and sticky with syrup, from a street vendor who fried them in the main market place in a huge iron pan filled with bubbling oil. Macalaurë took a pastry and ate it meditatively, licking his sugary fingers. “I always do, when I’m with you two.”

“Nonsense, Macalaurë,” said Findekáno cheerfully, taking a pastry for himself and slipping one arm around Maitimo’s waist. “Besides, if anyone was to be with us, I would rather it be you, because it wouldn’t shock you if I were to - ” he kissed Maitimo full on the mouth, catching him by surprise and causing him to stumble a little, but still somehow manage to keep hold of the pastries.

 

Findekáno ate his pastry calmly, trying not laugh as Maitimo recovered his balance, “Something wrong, Maitimo?” he said innocently. Macalaurë had to laugh.

“You nearly knocked me over!” protested Maitimo, but there was affection in his voice.

“Your fault for being so tall” said Findekáno. “No balance. Honestly.”

Maitimo took the last pastry and crumpled up the empty paper cone, throwing it at Findekáno, who ducked deftly, laughing. In truth, he was borne up by a heady sense of freedom, glad to simply be in Alqualondë where there was less need to be guarded with their affections, glad to walk along the shore carefree for a few warm summer days at least. It felt good, Findekáno thought, to wander aimlessly through the marketplace, listening to the sellers calling their wares and eating pastries with the two brothers, one the love of his life and both his beloved friends. To let the light of Laurelin warm his skin, and the salt breeze off the sea stir his hair, and above all to escape from the stuffy court at Tirion, with its growing political tensions of late.

“Listen,” said Macalaurë after a while, interrupting Findekáno’s musings. “There’s someone singing!” sure enough, they could hear a woman’s voice, singing a bright and rhythmic work song, although Findekáno could not quite make out the words. Macalaurë was looking around for the source of the sound. They turned a corner in the narrow lane between the market stall, and came upon a stall selling yarn, dyed in cheerful colours. Beside it sat a young Telerin woman, with brown skin, dark green eyes and a curtain of the ubiquitous rippled silver hair. She had braided ribbons into it, red and green to match her bright felted tunic, and was clearly the stall holder. She sat at a spinning wheel, singing in a pretty, low voice, and spinning thread. To all appearances she was completely ignoring the bustle of the market around her, although Findekáno had the distinct impression that anyone trying to steal from her stall would likely not get away with it. Her foot worked the pedal of the spinning wheel in time to the rhythm of the song, which was driving and relentless, although the tune was sweet, the kind of song that made one want to dance.

_“When will someone come to me?_  
 _Will he come by land or sea?_  
 _Will he my own lover be?  
_ _Oh, tell me truly, wheel-o.”_

“I know the tune but the words aren’t familiar. They’re different to how it’s sung in Tirion” said Macalaurë, almost to himself. “I have half a mind to go ask her about it.”

_“Wheel o’ fate, what ist ye say?_  
 _This year, next, or ne’er a day?_  
 _When will wooer come my way?  
_ _Oh, tell me truly, wheel-o.”_

“So go ask!” said Findekáno. He offered his hand to Maitimo and gave an exaggerated bow, grinning all the while. “Care to dance?”

“I’d love to” said Maitimo, and there was a heartfelt regret in his voice, for both knew that although they could let their guard down a little here in Alqualondë, they must still be wary, and dancing in the main market square was probably a spectacle too far.

_“Be he dark, or be he fair,_  
 _Shy or bold or debonair,_  
 _Ribbons braw shall deck my hair,  
_ _To meet and greet my true love.”_

Maitimo smiled at that, twining one of Findkáno’s dark braids, threaded with gold, around a finger. In answer, Findekáno pulled him behind another stall and kissed him again, suddenly wishing that the day were over and they were alone. Maitimo responded, letting his tongue slip over Findekáno’s lower lip and wrapping his arms about his shoulders, arching his back into the embrace for the briefest moment before pushing Findekáno away, glancing about warily.

A stream of people was passing down the main walkway of the market, pushing and shoving and blocking the spinner from view, although they could still hear her voice.

“Where’s Macalaurë gone?” asked Maitimo, giving voice to Findekáno’s own thought.

Maitimo craned his neck above the crowd and Findekáno stood on tiptoe, but Macalaurë was nowhere to be seen. “There he is!” said Maitimo eventually, pointing over the heads of the crowd towards a stall selling pipes and horns made of gleaming shells, mother of pearl glowing softly and lustrously against silver. Findekáno could barely see, but he could make out the back of a dark head amongst the sea of Telerin silver, poring over something. Maitimo seemed unconcerned. “Trust Macalaurë to get distracted in the space of a short walk across a market square! I daresay he’ll come home to Tirion with a collection of Telerin shell horns and the sudden ability to play them all flawlessly.”

“Should we go get him back?” said Findekáno, uncertainly.

Maitimo shrugged. “He seems happy enough. He’ll find his way back to us later, I suppose. What do you say to having a look around on our own?”

“Sounds like a good idea to me” said Findekáno. He looked around, his gaze stopping on a green-draped tent with a cracked, painted sign swinging in the breeze above the curtained door, and black cat sleeping curled up outside. He grasped Maitimo’s hand and pulled him towards it excitedly, laughing. “Look, Maitimo! Let’s get our fortunes told!”

Maitimo scoffed. “Those people will rob you blind, Finno. A bit of prophecy they might have, a touch of ósanwe to know what you want to hear, plus some guesses and pretty words, that’s all it is. There are people in our own family who could give you more accurate predictions, if that’s what you want. Artanis or Findaráto would dispense them for free too.”

“I know,” said Findekáno patiently, cupping Maitimo’s cheek, “but that’s not what I want. I want a bit of fun. Come on.” His tone left no room for argument. Maitimo gave a resigned sigh and rolled his eyes, but allowed himself to be led by the hand towards the fortune teller’s tent.

Findekáno paused before the door, looking for something to knock on that wasn’t heavy green drapery. But before he could call out, the curtain that served as the door was opened. Within stood a Telerin-looking woman, but instead of the brown skin and dark or green eyes typical of her people, she was pale as milk, her eyes the same grey-white as the sand on the beaches further along the coastline. She beckoned them both inside wordlessly, a small smile curling the corner of her narrow mouth.

Inside the tent it was dark, but for a lampstone in one corner in an elaborate lantern that cast strange, geometric shadows on the heavy green velvet curtains that seemed to cover everything. The air was thick with incense, smoking dancing in the pale beams and making Findekáno cough a little. Without having to turn around to see Maitimo, he could picture the disapproving look on his face, and he allowed himself a small smile at the thought.

The fortune teller sat in a wicker chair at one side of a table that was just a little too low to be comfortable. On the other side was a wooden bench, where Maitimo and Findekáno sat down when she motioned for them to do so. She looked first at Findekáno, smiling a little, and taking his hands in hers across the table. Her skin was dry, almost papery, but her hands were deft and gentle as she clasped his hands, palms together. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in. Then they flicked open, and she fixed him with a pale stare.

“You” she pronounced. Her voice was high and reedy, with the salt tang of a Telerin accent, although she spoke to them in Ñoldorin. “You are a strange one, there are… things… in your future that I do not like the look of. Light and shade. Fire and ice. You will fight for the wrong reasons and you will win, and you will fight for the right reasons and you will lose. Your song will echo in the mountains in a nameless land. You will save one you love, but you will fail to save more, so many more…” her brow wrinkled in a frown, and she looked almost afraid, Findekáno thought. “You will need to be brave, my child, for you will fight monsters. You will be a king… a king of broken things, and you will be broken too, in time. There will be pain…” she sighed, clarity coming back to her eyes again as she released his hands. “But you are young, and valiant, and you have a good and noble heart. I think, for you, the night will pass in time, and the day will come again.”

Findekáno did not know what to say. He was not sure what he had been expecting, but it had not been that. He smiled, inclining his head. “Thank you.”

But the fortune teller was already taking Maitimo’s hands in her own and closing her eyes. She seemed to keep them closed for longer this time, the small frown gathering on her brow again and her eyes moving visibly beneath her lids. She opened her eyes, looking down at Maitimo’s hands. She separated them, and inspected the palms closely, first the left and then the right. She ran her fingertips over them curiously, and seemed to flinch a little when she touched his right palm. Then she looked up at Maitimo.

“I cannot see much of your future at all, and what I do see I do not understand.” There was a question in her voice. “On one of your hands I see light, the other… dark. And around you all I see is fire.” She shuddered a little. “You are falling into the fire, my dear, a long, slow fall. You do not know that it has begun yet, but it has. You have been falling towards that fire since the day you were born, always falling.” She touched Maitimo’s cheek, looking sorrowful and not a little disturbed. “But it’s hard to see… there is something bright in the way, a bright light, a white flame… everything else is hidden behind that brightness.” She frowned, looking even more troubled.

“I do not know what brought you two to me” she said, looking between them, “but you’re not the usual…” she tailed off. “Stay together” she said at last. “Your strength will be found in each other, as well as in yourselves. Never let anything or anyone break the bond between you.”

“Thank you” Findekáno repeated. He smiled stiffly, wondering how obvious it was that they were lovers. “How much do we owe you?” he asked uncomfortably.

The fortune teller sighed. “I have begun seeing… worrying things of late, in people’s futures, Ñoldor and Teleri alike. But none have been so strange as yours. You have paid me in things to think on.”

Maitimo raised an eyebrow. “So… it’s free of charge?”

“Free of charge.”

———

“It’s good to get out of that incense” said Findekáno when they were back outside, blinking in the bright light of the marketplace. “If we had stayed in there any longer I would have been sneezing all over everything.”

“Mmmph” said Maitimo, who was frowning and looking at the ground, clearly not listening.

Findekáno stared at him. “Oh come on Maitimo, you don’t actually believe any of that stuff, do you? After what you said before? It was all so vague, it could apply to anyone.” Getting no response, he slipped his arm through Maitimo’s and rested his head against his cousin’s shoulder. “All that about you having fire all around you, and a bright light, and cold steel… she probably just has bad eyesight, and the fire was actually your hair - ” lazily, he caught a lock of it in his fingers “ – and the white light and the steel was just your unfairly beautiful silver eyes.”

Maitimo gave a grudging smile, amusement flickering in his gaze. “And you? She said you would be a king…?”

“Exactly my point!” laughed Findekáno, kissing Maitimo furtively at the corner of his mouth. “I’m after everyone and his dog in the line of succession… even if grandfather were to abdicate, which is not likely, there’s still your father, you and all of your brothers, and Atar before me. I’m not likely to be king of anything… except perhaps the king of hair braiding.” He grinned, tossing his hair ostentatiously, knowing it would make Maitimo laugh. Sure enough, his cousin chuckled.

“You’re right of course, Fin,” said Maitimo, looking at his hands thoughtfully. “But if it doesn’t mean anything, if it was just the same sort of thing she tells everyone… then why didn’t she charge us?”

“I don’t know” said Findekáno, starting to get impatient. “But I have ideas…” he put his hand on Maitimo’s chin and tilted his head so that their eyes met. He smiled. “The way she put her hand on your cheek? Clearly flirting with you. She’s got good taste at least…”

“Flirting? No she wasn’t!” His mouth curved upwards into a smile. “But then you’ve always been a bit of a jealous lover…”

“Jealous? Am I wrong to assume that everyone who sees you realises that you’re beautiful?” Findekáno feigned an affronted look, but belied his actions by pulling Maitimo towards him, tilting his head so that their foreheads were resting against each other. “I am fully convinced that the most accurate prophecy anyone will ever make about you was made by your mother, when she gave you your name.” Findekáno gave a mischievous smile. “You are the prettiest of all the Quendi in all the world, Maitimo.”

“Don’t talk like that” said Maitimo, his voice turning a little husky. “With every word you say you make me want to do things to you that would be quite inappropriate for a busy market day, even in Alqualondë.”

Findekáno kissed him lightly, teasingly, before pulling away, mindful again of where they were. “Really Maitimo, I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean. You’ll have to show me later.”

“Oh, I look forward to it.”

They were startled by a sound, and sprang apart, but it was only the sound of the young spinner at her wheel, beginning her song again.

_“When will someone come to me?_  
 _Will he come by land or sea?_  
 _Will he my own lover be?  
_ _Oh, tell me truly, wheel-o.”_

“We should probably look for Macalaurë now” said Maitimo, with a guilty glance at the colour of the sky. “We disappeared for quite a while back there.”

“I should think he’s used to that by now.”

_“Wheel o’ fate, what ist ye say?_  
 _This year, next, or ne’er a day?_  
 _When will wooer come my way?  
_ _Oh, tell me truly, wheel-o.”_

They wound their way through the crowd hand in hand, following the sound of the song since they had little else to guide them to wherever Macalaurë might have got to.

_“Be he dark, or be he fair,_  
 _Shy or bold or debonair,  
_ _Ribbons braw shall deck my hair,  
_ _To meet and greet my true love.”_

But there the song ended, and did not start again. Maitimo stared, at a loss, over the silver heads of the shoppers milling around. But the stalls were so densely packed and the market so busy now that it was difficult to see anything.

Findekáno looked to the stall where they had spotted Macalaurë the first time, but there was no sign of him. He turned back to Maitimo, keeping a tight hold of his hand so as not to get separated, to see him smiling. Findekáno followed Maitimo’s gaze to a doorway on one side of the square, flanked by heavy stone pillars. With his back to one of the pillars stood Macalaurë. The Telerin spinner who had been singing had pushed him against the pillar and was standing on the tips of her toes to kiss him fiercely, one hand in his hair and the other against his chest, pinning him against the stone. Macalaurë’s hands stuck out into the air, fingers splayed as if he had been caught by surprise and was not quite sure of what to do with them, but as they watched, they slid around her waist, pulling her closer.

“So much for investigating the local folk music traditions” said Maitimo dryly, but there was a smile in his voice.

“I think” said Findekáno, “that Macalaurë might be busy for some time, don’t you?”

“Perhaps” laughed Maitimo, watching for a moment before turning away to afford the couple a little privacy.

“Which gives us time for a trip to the beach!” said Findekáno brightly. “I’m going to push you into the water so that white shirt of yours turns entirely transparent and clings to you. Just so you know.”

“The smile you get when you say that is the most smug thing imagineable, Fin. Honestly, you should see yourself.”

“Well, I would say that I have plenty of reason for it. Besides, you should have realised that it would happen at some point on this trip. It’s inevitable really. And afterwards, we shall clearly both have to take our wet clothes off to let them dry, and then…”

“I like the way you think” said Maitimo.

By way of response, Findekáno dragged him off towards the beach, pulling him by the hand through the crowd. The day was still warm and bright, they were together, and for the moment at least, all thoughts of strange fates and prophecies were forgotten.

**Author's Note:**

> The song the spinner sings is in fact a real spinning song, although I've only used excerpts here. It's a Scottish folk tune called the Island Spinning Song.


End file.
